2023 WAS a momentous year for Chiedozie Ogbene.
The winger had made his international debut in 2021, becoming the first African-born player to represent the Republic of Ireland at senior level.
Two years on, the 26-year-old has become an integral squad member, winning the player-of-the-match award in both Euros qualifiers against France.
So while it has been a disappointing period for the Irish team in general, Ogbene emerged with plenty of credit and will likely continue to be a key figure for Stephen Kenny’s successor.
Of similar significance was his move to Luton Town last July after the expiration of his Rotherham contract — it meant that Ogbene fulfilled a lifelong dream, at last becoming a Premier League player.
Since then, he has gone from strength to strength, twice winning the Luton supporters’ player-of-the-month award and being recorded as officially the fastest player in the Premier League.
But the road to reaching these remarkable heights has been far from straightforward.
Steve Bermingham, Ogbene’s coach when he started announcing himself as one of the most exciting prospects in Irish football at Cork City U19s, remembers a player who would always do extra work outside of training and intensely focus on aspects of his game that needed improvement.
“He was a very outgoing person willing to learn, willing to listen, willing to take on advice, would ask questions on general areas to improve on,” Bermingham tells The42.
“And it was kind of a step-by-step approach. He got better and better over the months and years — game by game he was just getting stronger.”
The Lagos-born starlet was a key player as Cork City won the national underage league. The following season, the team played in the Uefa Youth League against sides including Roma and Helsinki. These performances led to Ogbene breaking into the Cork first team — he made nine Premier Division appearances and came off the bench in their 2016 FAI Cup final victory over Dundalk.
Every time he was asked to step up, the youngster was delivering.
“With Chiedozie, he was always looking forward,” says Bermingham. “I could see that he’d relish the opportunity to play against Liverpool, Man United and Man City,
“He’s not going to change his game because he’s playing against whoever from the top full-backs, or centre-backs in the world, that’s not going to gonna faze him whether he’s against that or in League One, he’s still going to play the same way. And we’ve seen that even with Ireland, he just gets the ball and beats players.”
One memory that stands out is how suddenly Ogbene would get in the zone before matches.
“I remember the 17s and 19s were travelling together. And he’s on the bus. And he was having a great laugh with everybody, funny, outgoing and very respectful and all that kind of stuff
“And then I turned round to the 17s manager and I said: ‘Watch this.’ We had pre-match food. Back onto the bus, earphones and tuned into the game.
“And that was his point of focus — he was tuned into the game. After the game finishes, back then again having a bit of a laugh with everybody, full of life and energy.”
Ogbene happened to be breaking through at a hugely successful point in Cork City’s history.
In 2017, they won a historic league and cup double but the young winger was no longer around to see it up close.
Despite the FAI Cup final appearance, he was not guaranteed a starting XI spot and so chose to join Limerick, a club where he would be more likely to enjoy regular game time.
“I remember [Limerick coach] Joe Gamble talking about him,” says Eddie Hickey, the side’s goalkeeping coach at the time. “He couldn’t believe that Cork didn’t really want to hold onto him. Joe said: ‘We need to get this guy.’
“A lot of [the move had] to do with Joe Gamble — he spotted his talent at an early age and got it over the line.”
“I was a bit surprised because he was a top prospect coming through,” recalls Shane Duggan, a player on the Limerick team back then. “For him to leave Cork who were flying at the time and sign for us — I was delighted to have him but it was a bit of a surprise.”
Valuing game time above all else is a recurring theme in Ogbene’s career.
After Limerick, his big move across the water to Brentford came. He made a handful of appearances for the Bees.
Although the Championship club were reluctant to permit his departure, he left seven months after joining, dropping down to League Two with Exeter on loan, before subsequently signing for League One side Rotherham on a permanent deal.
Duggan recalls a player who was innately confident in his long-term prospects: “I remember him saying in the dressing room one day Brentford were offering him a longer contract [than the one he eventually signed] but he didn’t want to sign it because he had ambitions to go higher up.
“Usually, a young lad would jump at an offer like that but he knew where he wanted to be and he was driven to get there.”
From the outset at Limerick, Ogbene’s talent was obvious.
“I can remember clearly I said: ‘This guy’s a complete athlete, because of his speed and agility,’ says Hickey on seeing him in training for the first time.
“The same day we were doing speed drills and all that kind of stuff, and he just blitzed it.
“Playing football is another thing, but he was an athlete. And then I saw him in small-sided games, and I said: ‘Yeah, he has the package this, he can go all the way.’
“His attitude was brilliant. He was infectious around the place. He gelled with everyone.
“When he used to go on the mazy runs down the wing, he just lifted everyone off their seats, it was a joy to watch.”
Yet it was also clear that Ogbene was far from the finished article at that point.
“He was a bit raw,” explains Duggan. “He had the power and the pace but his end product probably wasn’t the best or his touch, but in fairness to him, every day after training he’d work on his crossing and dribbling — he’d always do that extra.
“I knew with the physical attributes that he had, if he got a shot over there [in England], he had a chance because he was working every day on his game so he was only going to get better and better.
“I felt from the end of the season he was with us compared to the start, he was like a totally different beast, everything was starting to click for him. He was scoring goals, he was creating goals, he was just a handful to play against.”
Shane Tracy, another of Ogbene’s former Limerick teammates who is now a Uefa-qualified Underage Development Coach working with the FAI, says: “You see a lot of young players these days, they don’t want to take too much direction if you go over and speak to them to give them a bit of advice or encouragement or say ‘this hasn’t been good enough,’ you don’t get much of a response off them. Whereas Chiedozie took it onboard, he was very polite and showed good respect to the senior players.”
What impressed people at Limerick as much as anything was how Ogbene conducted himself off the pitch.
“He’d travel up with the lads from Cork,” says Duggan. “The boys would be eating a meal, but he’d bring up his little lunchbox, he’d have all these vegetables, his fruit and everything.
“There was no messing around eating junk. He wasn’t like the rest of us where you might have a little cheat day. He was always healthy. Maybe that’s where his athleticism comes from.”
“I don’t think he ever drank,” recalls Hickey. “I never saw him with a beer and he’s been out in my company a good few times on nights out. He did everything right off the pitch — he ate right, he slept well, and his training was unbelievable. I’d give him a 10/10 every training session.”
“On buses [to games], he was watching YouTube videos of Ronaldo and Messi,” adds Tracy. “He never really switched off from football.
“One of his coaches was [telling him] there were one in 5,000 that make it and he was saying he wanted to be that one in 5,000 to make it to the Premier League and that’s really what he was all about.
“I remember his last training session before he went to Brentford, Joe Gamble used to organise this run and he was [practically] walking over the line whereas there were lads who were crawling.”
Watching Ogbene for Ireland against Portugal just under four years after his Limerick departure, it was clear to Tracy that all the dedication to his game had paid off.
“He was playing against that centre-half Danilo, who’s with PSG.
“You noticed with the Irish teams physically, they weren’t able to have those runners in behind that could necessarily compete with the top tier teams.
“I remember the ball getting played on the channel, Chiedozie was there in front of him. He was outmuscling him and he was winning free kicks off him. You’re looking at that going: ‘That’s the first Irish player I’ve seen being able to do that against someone playing with one of the top clubs in Europe.’”
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Ogbene and Evan Ferguson have arguably been the two outstanding Irish players in 2023.
Yet what’s notable is how different their stories are in terms of their younger days.
Ferguson was a genuine prodigy — playing for Bohemians’ first team at the age of 14 against Chelsea and seemingly destined to become a top player.
Ogbene, by contrast, was toiling away in relative obscurity for a considerable period.
Laurence Neville has vast experience as a coach, including stints with Cork Institute of Technology and UCC’s Collingwood Cup teams.
Initially, he was somewhat reluctant to get involved with his eight-year-old son’s team but ultimately relented.
“I decided to put something into my child and my own club,” he says.
Tramore Athletic were not a prestigious schoolboy outfit like St Kevin’s Boys, the side Ferguson played for initially.
Instead, they were “lucky if they had a team every second year” with Neville required to start up the U9s side “from scratch”.
Neville encouraged his son to recruit players from the local school and one day, Ogbene, or ‘Edozie’ as he was known then, “rocked up” from Colaiste Chriost Rí.
His teammates included David Hurley, recently a key player in Galway’s successful promotion bid during the 2023 campaign.
Neville put the club in the third division, which was the fourth tier of Cork schoolboy football.
The fact that they only played every second week meant members of the squad, including Ogbene, were also able to play GAA on alternate weeks.
The future Ireland star consequently also gained a reputation as a talented Gaelic footballer for Nemo Rangers.
“He was very witty,” says Neville. “You’d be looking for the €5 [for playing], it would be: ‘I don’t have it.’ Then you see him coming out of the chipper on the way home.”
He continues: “Chiedozie was not exactly a big lad then, he started to grow into his body later. He wasn’t the standout player of the group, we had a nice balance of players.
“We always played him up top because he had pace as you can imagine.
“One of the things I always felt about him was that he was intelligent. He had a footballing brain, you know what I mean?
“At that age, you don’t give them information overload, but if you explained to Edozie about going offside and that ‘you’re faster than their centre-back,’ he’d pick that up.
“Other children don’t pick it up so fast, and you have to walk through the scenario and what you’re trying to implement.”
Over the years in the Cork footballing scene, Neville has come across several talented players who eventually went across the water. Man United legend Denis Irwin was in the same age group as him, while former Ireland international Kieran O’Regan and ex-Preston striker Graham Cummins are also namechecked.
Sometimes, it is instantly obvious that a young player is set for great things, but that was not the case with Ogbene.
“When I looked at Edozie, I didn’t see a fella who was going to go across,” Neville recalls
“He wasn’t a standout player. He didn’t make the Cork teams. We were down in the third division and the second division. But to be fair to that manager, he was trawling the leagues because I knew him and he was looking at the different teams.
“But he wasn’t at the level where [he looked like a future star]. I remember a few years ago going to the Kennedy Cup in Limerick and I was talking to this lad who was scouting for Arsenal. I said: ‘Who are you interested in?’ He said: ‘We lost out on a fella last night now.’ It was Robbie Brady. So Robbie Brady was exceptional and on everybody’s radar, Edozie wasn’t in that category.”
While the team were competitive, developing future professional players was not something Neville considered to be his primary responsibility.
“We were trying to get everybody a game, participation and having fun was the biggest part of it,” he explains.
“0.01% players make it so the priority is that you enjoy your football no matter what level you play at.
“I get a kick if I go to a Munster Senior League game and there are one or two of the boys from that Tramore team playing. I get a kick that they’re still playing and enjoying their football. To me, then I’ve achieved something. The chances of having an Edozie — it [generally] doesn’t happen.”
Moreover, there are aspects of Ogbene’s personality that were starkly apparent even then. Neville talks about the big calls the player made, dropping down from Cork to Limerick, and from Brentford to Rotherham, and traces it back to the boy he knew.
“He always had something in him that he’s backed himself. And you could see that even as a child, he was confident in his ability and himself.
“He came from a good background, good parents. He used to come to the matches with us because I was living near to him.
“His parents valued education hugely — education was the big thing for him.”
Indeed, Ogbene has spoken before in interviews about how he was “expected to be a doctor” but seemingly nothing was going to get in the way of his footballing dream.
“He had the conviction to back himself and you can’t teach that,” Neville adds.
“He was very happy playing with Tramore, knowing that he was with friends in a good atmosphere and he was enjoying his football. He never looked to go up to any of the Premier teams or anything like that where he would get seen more because some of the scouts only watch the Premier matches.”
There is pride now in the community at seeing the Tramore graduate lighting up the Premier League regularly.
“A lot of the parents [of players] on that Tramore team would be saying: ‘Isn’t Edozie doing fantastic?’
“There’s an awful lot of sad things in the world, so I think it’s fabulous when you see a feel-good story of Edozie and the way he’s carried himself and that he’s so grateful for it.
“He knows how tough it is. We’ve sent a lot of boys to England over the years who we thought were good players and they’ve had to move around — it’s been tough over there trying to get in. He’s done it and he’s driven on and gone further than any of us would have expected.”
Ogbene also has not forgotten the impact Neville and Tramore had on him.
“He rang one day and said: ‘I’ll come down [to Tramore] if you want me to.’ He must have given us three hours with these children. His arm nearly fell off he signed so much stuff, they were bringing their sisters, their brothers down and everything. He’s very kind, thoughtful and respectful — it’s one thing he always had.”
And perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Ogbene’s story is where he started.
Many of the players he is coming up against every week in the Premier League would have been at the academies of top English clubs by the time they were five or six. Ogbene’s development represents the antithesis of that pathway — a point not lost on Neville.
“He used to be over to me at 8.30am. We’d go down and start putting up the goals and stuff, and all you’d be listening to him laughing. My son and himself would be bumping off each other, grabbing each other and laughing.
“You’d be looking at them going: ‘Jesus, even at half eight on a December morning, they’re laughing.’
“You’d be saying: ‘Jump up on my neck there, Edozie, and try to fix the net.
“They were good times. There are teams you have fond memories of and they were just a nice bunch of boys. I was very lucky to have them.
“And there was good fun. I used to be coming home from training half laughing, saying: ‘Jaysus, I wouldn’t fancy teaching some of them.’”
He continues: “I can see why they’re doing the academies and the FAI feel like you must have the best players playing with each other — I appreciate that.
“But the issue is, you’re going to have kids at 12 or 13 saying: ‘Will I make it to Cork City or Cobh Ramblers?’
“Somebody was telling me this year Carrigaline had a good team — four went to City and three went to Cobh Ramblers. That’s seven of your 11 gone and you might only be there one year and if you’re not good enough, you’re cut. It’s a ruthless game and I can appreciate that’s what the coaches there have to do.
“But the issue is the fun side of it. Where does it start and stop?
“It’s very, very difficult, I do appreciate that. Unfortunately, the way the standard has gone and with the academy systems in England and around the world, the Dutch and the Spanish and all that, you probably have to go that route.
“But I’ve noticed over the years — Edozie’s friends are the Tramore boys, the ones he grew up with and the lads he went to school with. How many friends do you actually have when it’s dog-eat-dog in these academies?”
